This invention relates to coatings for ice cream novelty items, and particularly relates to coatings for novelty ice cream items where the coating exhibits resiliency. Typically, the novelty ice cream items are in the form of an ice cream bar on a stick.
Coated ice cream novelty items have been known for many years. Such coated ice cream novelty items are typically chocolate coated, although other flavored, sugar and fat based coatings can be used.
The present invention is particularly directed to chocolate coated ice cream novelties; and is particularly directed to so-called xe2x80x9cpremiumxe2x80x9d ice cream novelty items. By that, it is meant that the present invention is directed toward high quality ice cream novelty items that sell at a relatively high price in the market and which are comprised of high quality, top grade materials. Such items are generally found in the form of ice cream bars having a stick placed in the middle thereof, but other forms and variations of ice cream items may be found in the market to which the present application is equally relevant.
Typically, lower priced ice cream novelty items may have as much as 30% to 40% of their volume comprised of airxe2x80x94the ice cream being a high over-run product. Moreover, such low priced ice cream novelty items are very often made from ice cream or, indeed, ice milk, which has a low fat content. While such products may be favored by certain sectors of the market because of their low caloric content, they are also less attractive because they have less flavor, or artificially enhanced flavors. Premium novelty ice cream items, on the other hand, generally have less than about 30% volume by air, and have a much higher fat content in the ice cream.
In either event, however, if the novelty ice cream item is coated with a chocolate coating, the chocolate coating may be almost the same. While such coatings are called xe2x80x9cchocolatexe2x80x9d coatings, in fact they are not pure chocolate coatings. At least in North America, dispensations have been received from Governmental agencies responsibility for the quality and labelling of food items to label the coating as being xe2x80x9cchocolatexe2x80x9d, even though the coating may comprise a high percentage by weight of vegetable oil.
Indeed, coatings that are used on ice cream novelty items must contain, until now, a high percentage by weight of vegetable oil because otherwise their melting point would be far too high. The melting point of chocolate is very high, being well above room temperature; and, in some instances, above mouth temperature. Thus, in order to make the coating composition for the coating on the ice cream to be such that it will not be exceedingly hard and brittle, and have high snap, at temperatures below 0xc2x0 C., it is necessary to depress the melting point of chocolate. Even the melting point of milk chocolate is very high. Accordingly, manufacturers of ice cream novelty products having chocolate coatings thereon have been awarded the right, in Canada and the United States, to label their products as having a xe2x80x9cchocolatexe2x80x9d coating even though the melting point of the chocolate or milk chocolate has been depressed by the addition of a vegetable oil thereto. Such vegetable oils are typically cottonseed oil, soybean oil, canola oil, and other long chain oils.
Quite surprisingly, the present inventor has determined that it is possible to lower the melting point of chocolate or milk chocolate to an acceptable level for use as a coating composition for ice cream novelty items, by the addition of butter fat to the chocolate composition. In other words, the present invention comprises a composition that has two fat systemsxe2x80x94the chocolate fat system and the butter fat systemxe2x80x94and which has a melting point or characteristic SFI curve that is depressed.
Moreover, by the addition of butter fat in keeping with the present invention, the chocolate coating composition will exhibit a noticeable resiliency. That means, that the chocolate coating compositions in keeping with the present invention have a more controlled and gentle snap, are less brittle, and exhibit a less flaky characteristic when first bitten into. This resiliency also has a further advantage in that handling of the products is more easily accommodated with less danger of breaking or cracking the coating on the ice cream bar or other novelty item.
Of course, it is recognized that the cost of adding a butter fat constituent to a coating for ice cream novelty products, as opposed to depressing the melting point thereof by the use of vegetable oil, may significantly increase the costs of the chocolate coating composition. Nonetheless, when the chocolate coating composition is used in association with premium quality ice cream to produce high quality, high priced ice cream novelty items, then the added cost to the coating composition when viewed in relation to the price of the product, may be less significant than it would otherwise appear.
Still further, an advantage of employing a resilient chocolate coating composition in keeping with the present invention is such that the manufacturer of the ice cream novelty product can label and advertise the product as comprising pure chocolate.
In other words, the labelling can provide a list of constituents for the chocolate coating such that it may recite only chocolate liquor and cocoa butter, sugar, and butter fat; and, optionally but usually, whole milk solids. Other trace constituents such as vanilla or other flavoring, or lecithin, might also be employed, as described hereafter.
As employed herein, the term xe2x80x9cchocolate coatingxe2x80x9d may mean a dark chocolate coating or it may mean a milk chocolate coatingxe2x80x94one which includes whole milk solids.
The resilient pure chocolate coating composition of the present invention provides a eutectic composition in the truest sense of the word. The composition is such that the two fat systems, the chocolate fat system and the butter fat system, and indistinguishable one from the other. Moreover, the mouth feel or organoleptic release of flavor of the chocolate coating is different from chocolate coatings as they are presently found in the market because the tongue senses a smoother, softer, less crispy chocolate film or coating, having a softer or less pronounced snap, together with a more complete and more rapid release of flavour.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,474 issued Jan. 7, 1997, the inventor herein has provided a method of preparation of chocolate crumb. In that patent, the present inventor teaches an anhydrous chocolate crumb where anhydrous butter fat may be added to a dried mix so as to provide a final analysis for the total amount of dried milks and anhydrous butter fat up to specified amounts.
In another U.S. Pat. No. 5,672,373 issued Sep. 30, 1997, the present inventor has provided a method of producing anhydrous whole milk powder having full fat recovery for further use. There, the anhydrous milk powder is added back to dried skim milk in designated quantities, and blended so as to have the same constituent make-up of ordinary dry whole milk, but wherein all of the fat constituent is recoverable as fat. That anhydrous milk powder is particularly intended for use by the chocolate industry, in the manufacture of milk chocolate; although it may also be used in the manufacture of dry baking mixes or other prepared foods where dried milk powder is not to be re-hydrated.
WARKENTIN U.S. Pat. No. 3,959,516 issued May 25, 1976 teaches a classic method for producing a solid chocolate composition which is suitable for coating ice cream. Here, cocoa powder is milled, with or without an additional chocolate liquor, but together with sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, salt, lecithin, and optionally whey powder or low fat milk powder. The purpose is to provide wafers of chocolate which have a softening point of about 100xc2x0 F., which solid chocolate wafers are easily handled. When a chocolate coating for ice cream is intended to be made, the wafers are stirred into warm vegetable oil, having a temperature of about 110xc2x0 to 130xc2x0 F., in the ratio of approximately 50% by weight of solid chocolate wafers and about 50% by weight of warm vegetable oil. Obviously, the chocolate coating composition which is thus prepared has a very high vegetable oil constituent. Thus, while the chocolate coating is referred to as such, it is not, in fact, pure chocolate.
CAIN et al., in U.S. Pat. No.5,858,427 issued Jan. 12, 1999, teach a flexible ice cream coating composition which is intended to be used, for example, in coating an ice cream cone into which ice cream will later be placed. The coating may have a high unsaturated fat constituency, but it is in any event made from oils such as palm oil, shea, lillipe, together with cocoa butter or factions thereof, along with sunflower oil, maize oil, soyabean oil, olive oil, safflower oil, or canola oils.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,556,659 issued Sep. 17, 1996 to DePEDRO et al. teaches a reduced-calorie coated frozen confectionery. Here, the coating is a water-in-oil emulsion which contains up to 55% by weight of water.
Published Japanese patent application No. 62113800, published Nov. 16, 1988, in the name of FUJII et al. teaches a coating composition for a frozen dessert that employs an edible oil, cocoa butter, skim milk powder, sweetener, emulsifying agent, and water.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a resilient pure chocolate coating composition for coating novelty ice cream items, which coating composition is anhydrous, and has a melting point above 0xc2x0 C. and below 20xc2x0 C. The composition comprises:
As a milk chocolate coating, the present invention provides a resilient milk chocolate coating having the composition described above, but further comprising up to 30% whole milk solids.
The anhydrous chocolate coating composition of the present invention may further comprise up to 1% vanilla flavoring. It may also comprise up to 1% lecithin.
Representative SFI characteristics for various cocoa butter: butter fat eutectic mixtures are as follows, it being understood that the figures indicated below are exemplary and not limiting. Specifically, the SFI characteristics may vary as a consequence of a number of facts, including but limited to: the source of the cocoa butter (Brazil, Malaysia, etc.); whether the butter fat is winter or summer fat, the breed or variety of cattle, whether they were range fed or stabled, and so on. Nonetheless, typical SFI characteristics of cocoa butter: butter fat eutectic mixtures are as follows:
Another aspect of the present invention is to provide an ice cream novelty item which comprises an ice cream core, and a chocolate coating on the ice cream core, as described above.
Typically, the thickness of the chocolate coating on the ice cream core is in the range of from 0.8 mm to 3.0 mm.
A further aspect of the present invention is to provide a method of making an anhydrous resilient pure chocolate coating composition for coating ice cream novelty items, where the composition is as noted above. The method comprises the steps of:
(a) mixing the chocolate liquor and cocoa butter constituent together with the sugar constituent;
(b) drying the mixture of step (a) to form a powder;
(c) adding anhydrous butter fat to the powder; and
(d) conching the mixture of step (c).
Where the pure chocolate coating composition is a milk chocolate, it will comprise up to 30% whole milk solids. The whole milk solids are added in either step (a) or step (c).
Still further, the present invention provides a method of making an ice cream novelty item where the method of making the ice cream novelty item comprises the steps of:
(a) preparing the ice cream core and cooling the same to a temperature below xe2x88x9220xc2x0 C.;
(b) preparing the anhydrous resilient pure chocolate coating or milk chocolate coating;
(c) heating the anhydrous resilient pure chocolate coating or milk chocolate coating to a temperature above 38xc2x0 C.;
(d) applying the heated pure chocolate coating or milk chocolate coating to the ice cream core, and permitting the coating to harden; and
(e) packaging the coated ice cream novelty of step (d).